Argentina - Bariloche II

Another sunny day .... I had a hard time getting up in time since we ended up drinking a bit too much the night before. I had met Gary again who was also on the Navimag. Quite interesting how I keep running into folks all the time who did the boat trip with me. We planned to do a hike to "Refugio Lopez". At first we needed to take a bus and since we had no schedule we had to wait almost 2 hours. It was funny, according to the other bus drivers our bus was always "just behind them", "would come in 10 minutes", "would arrive in 30 minutes" or "would pick us up in 5 minutes". Well, the guy with the "5 minutes" was right, unfortunately we had waited over 1 1/2 hours already. Nevertheless we made it there and started our hike immediately since we only had 5 hours for the round trip, so we could make the 6:00 pm bus back to town.





The hike did not give us any time to adjust. Immediately we had to climb on a steep single trail, sometimes it was so steep we had to crawl on all fours .... but it was fun being challenged and we were rewarded by amazing views.




Well, you have seen this before, but it is so beautiful I needed to show it again :-)

"Captain Adventure" close to the peak. After almost 90 minutes we reach the snow level, which made the final ascent to the "Refugio Lopez" a bit challenging. Foolish me did not put sun lotion on my legs .... the snow reflected the sun and provided a nice burn.

Gary and me at the refugio. We made the advertised 4 hour hike in less than 2 hours and relaxed at the top, enjoying the amazing views.

The bad weather earlier in the week had a positive effect. All the mountains were covered in fresh snow.

The last evening in Bariloche. We had dinner at "Kandahar", a great local restaurant. With me are Gary as well as Andy and Cath (whom I have also met on the Navimag). We had awesome food, great wine (plenty) and a lot of fun.